I never met him. Our relationship was conducted totally via email and IM. Everything I knew about him and his life i learned through a little white box with a blue border made by the good folks at Cerulean Studios. He built one of the earliest prototype’s for SSP #1 and gave me guidance on where it would have issues in future development. Last night, when I IM’ed him to say hello and ask about his future availability, it was a shock when I got this IM back: “Hello, this is Ragu’s wife, Ragu died on 8th September.”

What do you say? There is nothing you can type that “sounds” even remotely kind and caring enough. So I typed nothing, said nothing, just quietly slithered off-line…

The social parts of interacting online are so very limited and limiting. This reminded me that true social interaction could never occur over a network. Feelings, interaction, context and experience cant be computer mediated.